Ethereum Classic, or ETC as it is referred to, has come across as one of the most talked about altcoins on the blockchain. The success of Ethereum Classic is the first of its kind after the DAO Hack back in July 2016.

What is Ethereum?

You cannot really talk about Ethereum Classic without discussing what Ethereum is. Ethereum is basically a public sourced blockchain network that provides leverage for the creation of decentralized apps and smart contracts. It went live back in July 2015 after its extremely successful ICO in August 2014. The ICO for Ethereum is to date considered as one of the most profitable and is acclaimed for its ability to set the gold standard for all ICOs to come in the future.

Ethereum’s digital token, known as Ether or ETH, has turned out to be the second most popular cryptocurrency; yes you guessed it right, the first one is Bitcoin. The market cap for Ethereum today is more than $35 billion.

What Is ETC?

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is the cryptocurrency from the original Ethereum blockchain. This means that the ETC blockchain has the same capabilities as Ethereum, including the functionality of smart contracts and the ability to develop and maintain DApps.

Mining pools for Ethereum Classic were made after the Etherium hard fork. Although, the blockchain for both Ethereum and ETC are the same, numerous changes have been made in the system for ETC. These changes include network upgrades and resolving various issues.

Should You Have Ethereum Classic?

We can now get to the more serious part of finding out whether ETC deserves to be in our cryptocurrency portfolio or not. Why should you invest in ETC when Ethereum’s Ether offers the same thing with a more risk-free ouput?

While Ethereum’s Ether is obviously the logical choice between these two, there are a couple of reasons as to why you can select ETC tokens for your portfolio.

The community for ETC recently agreed upon a new and revised financial policy that puts a hard cap on the total insurance for Ethereum classic. This makes ETC a really price supportive digital currency. Key stakeholders in the ETC community have agreed to keep the total supply of ETC under 230 million.

Ethereum’s Ether has grown because numerous ICOs have used it as one of their funding currencies. If ETC is able to generate such an opportunity, they would also witness a steep rise in the demand and price of their offering. Future ICOs are showing interest in including ETC as a funding currency.

Risks of Investing in ETC

There are two large protagonists for ETC, The Ethereum Foundation and the Dao Hackers, who can bring the price for the cryptocurrency lower by deciding to dump their tokens in the market. Both the holders combine to form 3.65 percent of the total circulation. Another risk associated with ETC and its blockchain is that there seems to be no interest as of now from investors to build new ventures on top of the ETC blockchain, as Ethereum and Ether are their preferred choice.